Are You Selling Life Rafts or Sailboats?

If you have read any of my articles over the last few years, you know that I strongly advocate that financial advisors focus their practice on a niche market. The reason is that it is much easier to reach a small group of people with similar needs and mindsets and persuade them to work with you than it is to do the same for a broader audience with diverse needs.

That being said, most advisors still cater to everyone who will meet their minimum fee. One of the marketing challenges these advisors face is finding one marketing message that connects with people facing different life experiences.

Let’s say you are a generalist Registered Investment Advisor working with widows, retirees, and people experiencing sudden windfalls. What message would you use that applies to all three of these groups?

Messaging is difficult because some of these clients come from a place of survival, while others come from a place of abundance. To reach all three of these groups, you have to use a generic message like “Helping you achieve your financial goals.” But this message doesn’t deeply resonate with any of these clients, which means you lose out on your chance to connect with your prospect through your marketing.

Instead, let’s consider the messages you could use if you worked with just one of these client types:

Widows: Helping You Regain Your Footing After Your Loss

Retirees: Helping You Understand If You Will Be OK in Retirement

Sudden Money: Helping You Thrive Using Your Newfound Wealth

In financial services marketing, a lot of emphasis gets placed on aspirational marketing messages—for example, “Live the Retirement You’ve Been Dreaming Of.” There is no question that everyone wants to live happily ever after. But some people are so far from that outcome, they can’t even imagine it. They aren’t in the headspace to consider aspirational goals. A recent widow doesn’t want to re-envision a life she loves. She just wants to know if she will end up as a bag lady or have to live with her kids.

If you aren’t willing to niche, at least decide whether you are trying to help your clients thrive or survive. Then build a message around one of those themes. Are you selling them life rafts (survive) or sailboats (thrive)?

Below is a list of scenarios where someone may be looking for a life raft versus a sailboat.

Life Raft

• Loss of a spouse

• Eldercare

• Divorce

• High debt

• Retirement with limited savings

Sailboat

• HENRY status

• Sudden windfalls

• Legacy planning

• Retirement with significant savings

These are generalities that would need adjusting for your clients. For example, retirement may be an exercise in surviving for some, while it is an exercise in thriving for others. For most, the death of a spouse requires a life raft. However, there may be cases where a 22-year-old is in a marriage of convenience with an 80-year-old. The death of their spouse would put them into the sailboat category. Or there may be multimillionaires planning their legacy but have such complicated family dynamics (e.g., blended families, children with special needs), they feel like they are drowning and need a life raft.

Whether a person needs a life raft or a sailboat has nothing to do with how much money they have. It has to do with their mindset. Do they just want to know that they’re going to be OK, or do they want to achieve something greater than what they’ve already accomplished?

Your marketing needs to communicate the message your prospects want to hear today. And if you are trying to sell both life rafts and sailboats by “helping you get the boat you need,” neither group will hear your message.

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About Kristen Luke

Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing consulting firm that positions Registered Investment Advisors and their employees as experts in a niche, making them “uncomparable” to other advisors. Over the past 17 years, Kristen has consulted with hundreds of financial advisory firms and shared her marketing expertise via industry conferences and publications nationwide.

The 52: Don’t Hide Behind Development

Don’t Hide Behind Development

Marketing is about getting your name in front of your prospects. That can mean speaking to a group, networking, or actively participating on social media, just to name a few.

Yet so many advisors hide behind developing their marketing instead of interacting with their prospect community.

A common scenario would be spending your allocated marketing hours each week perfecting your website and obsessing over search engine optimization in the hopes that prospects will just find you. In this case, you would feel like you are spending a lot of time on marketing, but in fact, you aren’t moving the needle.

Instead, you would be better off having a mediocre website and spending your time actively getting in front of prospects, directing them to your website to schedule an appointment.

Ask yourself: Is your marketing time spent developing or interacting? While development is important, it should be a fraction of the time you spend interacting.

The 52: Be Consistent with Your Niche Message on Social Media

Be Consistent with Your Niche Message on Social Media

When starting with a new niche, make sure you communicate a consistent message on your social media posts. Your goal is to be known as the go-to person in your niche, so every post needs to be clearly for them. If you start integrating non-niche content into your posts, you’ll fail to reinforce the positioning you are trying to establish.
For example, let’s say you are an individual advisor in a larger RIA, and you have decided to focus on the niche of employees with equity compensation in a specific industry. Every post should address the things that are top of mind for this niche (e.g., how your RSUs are taxed). Do not post other content your company is creating, such as economic outlooks or blogs on non-related topics like estate planning.
You need to be laser focused on communicating that you are an expert in one niche. Every time you post a non-niche topic, you are failing to differentiate yourself.

The 52: By the Time You Need Marketing, It’s Too Late

By the Time You Need Marketing, It’s Too Late

Marketing is an investment of time, money, and energy. And like any investment, it takes time to see a return.

When you get to a point when you need marketing to keep your business going, it’s too late to do much. Just like a prospect coming to you with $150,000 in assets who wants to retire this year, there just isn’t enough time for the investment to pay off.

If you need prospects immediately, focus on outbound sales. Pound the pavement, make calls, and hit up your referral partners.

If you want your business to easily generate prospects in the future, focus on marketing now. Establish your identity, build your reputation, and put systems in place to execute consistently.

The 52: Not Every Firm Should Niche

Not Every Firm Should Niche

Through our work with financial advisors, we have discovered the easiest way to market is to specialize in a niche. However, not all firms should niche. Here are four situations where focusing on a broad market is the better choice:

• Firms in small, close-knit communities with widespread name recognition

• Firms where the owner is going to sell to an outside entity in the next five years

• Firms that consistently generate enough referrals to achieve annual growth goals

• Firms with outside investment that can spend significant money on national mass marketing campaigns

The 52: Sell Solutions, Outcomes, and Transformation, Not Products or Services

Sell Solutions, Outcomes, and Transformation, Not Products or Services

Many advisors focus on selling their services, such as investment management, financial planning, and retirement planning. But prospective clients aren’t looking to purchase a service—they want a solution to their problem, a specific outcome, or a transformation.

In your marketing, help your prospects visualize the transformation they will experience after working with you. For example, instead of promoting “retirement planning,” say: “Have a plan so you can stop being afraid of spending your hard-earned money and start enjoying the best years of your retirement.” The second message is not only more desirable to your prospect but something they’ll want to pay you to help them achieve.

The 52: Marketing Strategies for the Introverted Financial Advisor

Marketing Strategies for the Introverted Financial Advisor

Introverted advisors don’t always see themselves as marketers because so many of the people held up as “good marketer” role models are extroverts. You know them. They constantly self-promote on social media and can be seen at every event, and you feel like they are literally everywhere.

If you are an introverted advisor, this type of marketing can be exhausting. But being an introvert doesn’t mean your marketing has to be less effective. Here are three strategies introverted advisors should follow to be successful marketers:

Strategy 1: Focus on a niche. When you take a rifle, not a shotgun, approach, you’ll find that your efforts spent interacting with people in the niche community will multiply much faster than if you target a broader market.

Strategy 2: Take advantage of content marketing. Content marketing allows your expertise and knowledge to shine, helping you overcome the extroverted characteristics usually associated with good sales and marketing people.

Strategy 3: Utilize digital channels. These channels allow you to network from the comfort of your home or office and give you the opportunity to think before you “speak.”

Marketing Strategies for the Introverted Financial Advisor

The 52: Dictate Your Blog

Dictate Your Blog

Do you struggle to write a blog consistently? Consider dictating your first draft. By talking through your article and having it transcribed, your blog becomes an editing exercise instead of a writing exercise.

There are plenty of speech-to-text services available, but it can be as simple as opening a Word document. When the dreaded blank page appears, instead of typing, click the “Dictate” button on the home menu and start talking. You’ll soon find your blog being typed in front of your eyes.

Marketing Strategies for the Introverted Financial Advisor

The stereotypical advisor portrayed on TV and in the movies is a fast-talking, extroverted salesperson. But in my experience consulting with RIAs, many financial advisors are actually the opposite. They can be quite introverted and prefer the work of financial advising over the selling and self-promoting aspects of the business. But these advisors, who prefer to stay under the radar, often struggle with marketing.

Introverted advisors don’t always see themselves as marketers because so many of the people held up as “good marketer” role models are extroverts. You know the ones. They constantly self-promote on social media and can be seen at every event, and you feel like they are literally everywhere.

If you are an introverted advisor, this type of marketing can be exhausting. You would rather spend your energy meeting with clients one-on-one or analyzing different financial strategies. You prefer to attract prospects because of your reputation for the good work you do for clients, not because of your sales and marketing skills. The last thing you want to do is to publicly and frequently put yourself out in the world.

But a problem arises if you use your introversion as an excuse not to market your business. You not only hurt yourself but also the people who never get the benefit of working with you because they don’t know you exist.

As an introvert myself, I understand that the marketing approaches used by extroverts are not a good fit for introverts. But being an introvert doesn’t mean your marketing has to be less effective. I have consulted with plenty of introverted advisors who are successful marketers. The key is to use marketing strategies that play off your strengths as an introvert.

If you want to become a good marketer as an introverted advisor, the first thing you need to do is to change your mindset about marketing. The goal of marketing is to connect the person who has a problem with the person who can solve their problem. It’s not about tricking or manipulating people. It’s not about being entertaining or controversial. While these tactics work for some, you don’t have to follow their lead. Your job is to find the people who have the problem you want to solve and let them know you can solve it.

Here are three strategies introverted advisors can follow to be successful marketers:

Strategy 1: Focus on a Niche

The first strategy is to focus your marketing efforts on one niche. When you focus on a narrow set of clients that all share the same problem, finding the people who need your service becomes easier. In other words, you take a rifle, not a shotgun, approach. You conserve your energy by focusing on only the most promising opportunities instead of spreading yourself thin by chasing every opportunity. For example, it is much less effort to find the people in your area who are blue-collar workers in the oil and gas industry and want to retire in the next 10 years than to locate everyone in your area needing retirement planning.

By focusing on a niche, you narrow the size of your potential client pool. This may sound like a negative, but it is actually a positive, especially for introverts. The smaller community means it is easier for you to become known. Word of mouth about your expertise spreads more quickly. As you get to know people in your niche community, it is easier to meet more members of the niche through warm introductions. You’ll find that your efforts spent interacting with people in the niche community will multiply much faster than if you targeted a broader market.

Strategy 2: Take Advantage of Content Marketing

Introverts tend to be more comfortable listening and thinking than talking. You can turn this tendency to your advantage by using content marketing—such as blogs, videos, podcasts, and presentations—to showcase your expertise. Remember, the goal of marketing is to connect the person who has a problem with the person who can solve their problem. Listen to what your niche says is their problem and create content educating them on the solutions to their problem.

Many forms of content marketing allow you to think through what you want to stay instead of feeling forced to do it off the cuff. Content marketing enables you to refine and iterate your work before you present it to the public. For example, most introverts are well suited to written content. It gives you the time to think through your topic and have an editor perfect your work before the world sees it. Scripted videos can be another good medium because you can plan what you want to say, record multiple takes, and have an editor cut out any blunders. I’ve also seen many introverts who are great public speakers because they can practice their material dozens of times before giving it.

Content marketing allows your expertise and knowledge to shine, helping you overcome the extroverted characteristics usually associated with good sales and marketing people. You’ll also find that prospects who follow your content will reach out to you “pre-sold” on what you do, making the sales process easier.

Strategy 3: Utilize Digital Channels

Digital channels such as social media or online forums can be great places for introverted advisors to find their niche and connect. These channels allow you to network from the comfort of your home or office without having to attend networking events, often dreaded by introverts. Interacting on digital channels also gives you the opportunity to think before you “speak” and delete anything you regret posting.

Most introverts prefer one-on-one or small-group interaction, so the strategy for digital channels is the same. Find online groups of people representing your niche, and join the individual conversations that are taking place. Comment on posts of people you know or want to get to know. And respond to comments on the content you post.

Final Thoughts

Being an introverted advisor doesn’t mean you are at a disadvantage. It just means you need to take an approach suited to your strengths. When you use marketing that plays to those strengths, prospects will come to you “pre-sold,” making the sales process much easier for you.

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About Kristen Luke

Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing consulting firm that positions Registered Investment Advisors and their employees as experts in a niche, making them “uncomparable” to other advisors. Over the past 16 years, Kristen has consulted with hundreds of financial advisory firms and shared her marketing expertise via industry conferences and publications nationwide.